


Better Half

by misura



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Multi, Pre-Threesome, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:54:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27917074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "Dear," she said. "He's of the Ninth; he's not a mind-reader."
Relationships: Ortus Nigenad/Abigail Pent/Magnus Quinn
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2020





	Better Half

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corvidlesbian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidlesbian/gifts).



Magnus sighed. Being of the Fifth House, he did it with style and panache and a suggestion that his mood was melancholy, rather than anything so base as sad or, God forbid, frustrated.

Nevertheless, Abigail also heard the sigh for that it was: a cry for help. In a very understated and extremely polite sort of way, it went without saying.

"Dear, has it occurred to you that perhaps ... ?"

Magnus looked horrified and a little shocked. "He's _flirting_ with you. Unless I'm very much mistaken, which has, of course, been known to happen, but not for a while now."

"Not for a while now," Abigail agreed, recalling the exact date, time and occasion.

"And I maintain that could have happened to anyone," Magnus said, probably doing the same.

Married life was like that, or at least married life with someone like Magnus was. Abigail did not doubt married life with Ortus Nigenad would be profoundly _unlike_ that but then, she had no interest in marrying Ortus.

True, such arrangements were not unheard of, yet even the Fifth House had its sense of propriety and besides, the prospect of getting drawn into the politics surrounding the Ninth did not appeal.

Drawing the Ninth into the politics surrounding the Fifth and by extension the Fourth House ... well, that was another matter entirely.

"I'll grant you that he's flirting with me," Abigail said. She might have added that by Fifth House standards, Ortus didn't flirt very well, or refined, or subtly.

Likewise, she might have pointed out that water was wet, ice was cold, snow-leeks were fit only for side-dishes and soups and that Magnus held her more dear than life itself.

"Yes, and therein lies my dilemma, does it not?" Magnus said. Abigail could tell that he was going for brooding. Being of the Fifth, he looked solemnly thoughtful instead. She decided it suited him.

Of course, she would have hardly chosen him as her husband if it hadn't. One's husband ought to be like one's wallpaper: it had to suit. One did not want to have to change one's wallpaper any time one acquired a new piece of furniture. "Dear. You have now repeatedly told him to please stop flirting with your wife."

"Well, why not? It's a reasonable enough request, I dare say."

Abigail smiled at him. "Ordinarily, yes."

"Shows good taste, I thought," Magnus offered, following her guidance, meek as a lamb. "Him flirting with you, I mean, not me calling him on it."

She still remembered the expression on his face as she'd suggested they might marry, his polite protestations of not being good enough, interesting enough, clever enough.

"Dear," she said. "You keep leaving off the second part of the sentence. He's of the Ninth; he's not a mind-reader."

Magnus bit his lower lip, a bad habit Abigail suspected he'd reacquired from the teenage Fourth. It made her want to kiss him, which would thoroughly derail the conversation, and this conversation was needed, possibly even overdue. (Ortus might not flirt well, but he flirted with sincerity and enthusiasm and the sort of admiration she recognized from when Magnus had started to realize that she was not, in fact, teasing him, or at least not without intending to deliver what she hinted at promising.)

"I don't want to presume," he said. "You're my wife: you deserve all the happiness."

"It's not bad manners to ask something for yourself every now and then," Abigail said. Ideally, one did not need to ask, of course - or at least, not without already being sure of the answer.

Magnus offered up another masterpiece of a sigh.

"If you won't say it, I will," she said, half-offer and half-threat.

Magnus's expression brightened. "You know, that might be a rather capital idea. Make clear the lay of the land, the quarter from which the wind is blowing, that sort of thing. Though I should hope he knows already, considering."

"Very probably," Abigail said, because there was a time and place for honesty, and because a gift for terrible poetry did not disqualify a man from having other fine qualities as well.

"Or we could make it a joint statement, for extra clarity." Magnus was warming up to the subject now. "Next time he starts quoting poetry at you, or compliments your intellect, I'll say, 'please stop flirting with my wife' and then you say ... "

" 'Please start also flirting with my husband.' "

Magnus beamed, looking as if someone had just rearranged the universe for his maximum convenience. "Perfect."

"His interest lies with both of us, you know," Abigail said. It took no effort to sound kind, even less effort than it took to imagine anyone looking at Magnus and not finding him likeable, at the very least.

"Pretty rude to be flirting with a man's wife otherwise. Of course, he's Ninth House, so I suppose I shouldn't judge: different House, different rules."

Abigail felt perfectly comfortable judging rudeness wherever she found it. "So stop worrying and start planning what we'll be having for breakfast the morning after."

Magnus bowed. "As my lady wife wishes."


End file.
